Business

OVERNIGHT MONEY: Senate devotes a day to the federal budget

by Vicki Needham, Bernie Beckerand Peter Schroeder - 05/15/12 9:31 PM ET

WEDNESDAY’S BIG STORY:

Budget bonanza: For lack of a battle outside of the debt-limit debate, the Senate on Wednesday is expected to discuss and vote on several Republican budget resolutions, mostly just to show that Democrats won’t support them.

Senate Republicans and Democrats are prepared to use budget votes as election-year ammunition in the pick-a-budget-any-budget game.

Most Democrats, including Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), have argued that last year’s debt-limit agreement, the Budget Control Act, has provided spending levels for House and Senate appropriators, negating the need for a budget resolution and the subsequent vote-a-rama.

Conrad (D-N.D.) sees the votes scheduled for Wednesday as a way to show that no GOP budget can gain enough traction to be used as a blueprint for government spending that, he hopes, will further highlight that there is no need, this year, for a budget resolution outside of the debt-limit deal.

The Senate GOP will get a roll call on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget blueprint, panned by Democrats and the White House for gutting spending for senior programs such as Medicare.

In March, the Republican-led House rejected, 0-414, a similar attempt.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) also will throw his budget into the ring, which is based on the blueprint released by President Obama in February.

The GOP initiative is intended to embarrass the White House by painting the president’s budget as so weak on fiscal issues and deficit trimming that even his own party won’t support it.

{mosads}”We are going to see, from some of my colleagues on the other side, truly extreme plans, and I hope they will be voted down tomorrow,” Conrad said.

“Tomorrow will be an interesting day to discuss different members’ views of the fiscal future of this country.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dismissed the GOP plans as gimmicks.

“These are not issues that are serious in nature, they are all just for show,” he said. “All these ridiculous budgets they have are nonbinding. The president doesn’t have to sign them.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said his party is merely following the 1974 Budget Act, which says any lawmaker can propose a resolution if the Budget Committee fails to report one.

He said the law helps prove that the August debt-ceiling deal does not constitute a full “budget.”

“I know that our friends on the other side of the aisle said that because of the Budget Control Act we already have a budget, but the parliamentarian does not view that as the case or we wouldn’t be allowed to have these votes that will occur tomorrow,” he said.

Besides the Ryan and Sessions budgets, there are plans from Sens. Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Rand Paul (Ky.), and Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Paul team up for a fifth plan.

Sessions said Tuesday that Democrats were showing a lack of leadership by failing to produce their own budget.

“The party running the Senate has neither written nor offered a budget plan for our nation’s financial future, preferring instead to call for higher taxes to fund endless government growth and waste,” he said.

Even former President Clinton got in on the budget act Tuesday, calling on Obama to be more aggressive in reducing the deficit as the campaign season heats up.

“The president, I think, should talk more about the Medicare savings he has proposed, and the defense cuts he has proposed, and the fact that he proposes — and this, I disagree with this, by the way — he proposes to take discretionary non-defense spending to its lowest percentage of GDP since President Eisenhower was in office,” Clinton said.

“We ought to be talking about this stuff. He has at least tried to honor the deal he made with the Republicans, and I think he should talk more about it, and I think they should talk more about it.”

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR

What it means to be significant: The House Financial Services Committee will ask tomorrow: what does it really mean to be significant? Specifically, Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing will be on “systemically important financial institutions,” or SIFIs — the big and vital firms whose stability is a necessary part of the overall financial system. Under Dodd-Frank, regulators have been tapped with doling out that title, and the heightened regulations that come with it. Lawmakers will hear from officials from the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, as well as business and market experts on the subject.

Banking on China: A separate Financial Services subcommittee will spend Wednesday afternoon discussing ways for U.S. financial firms to get a leg up in China. The hearing comes days after the Federal Reserve signed off for the first time on the acquisition of U.S. bank branches by a Chinese bank, which in turn has the banking industry back home hoping it can make some headway in the Chinese market.

More spending choices: Senate appropriators on Wednesday will discuss the fiscal 2013 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with Administrator Lisa Jackson while the Defense subcommittee talks in a closed session about the budget for the Northern and Southern Command programs.

On the House side, appropriators will mark up the Homeland Security/Military Construction/Veterans Affairs spending bill for next year.

Small businesses and trade: The House Small Business Committee will hold a hearing on challenges faced by small businesses that want to do more exporting. The panel intends to focus on trade policy initiatives of the Obama administration and their effect on exporters. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will testify on the status of current trade negotiations and the overall strategy to open new markets for United States goods and services. The hearing comes a week after legislation was introduced that is expected to help small firms enter increase their exports while simplifying the maze of federal export promotion agencies.

HUD subpoena: The House Financial Services subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will vote Wednesday on whether to force the Department of Housing and Urban Development to produce information on its HOME Investment Partnerships Program.

“The documents we have requested are essential to our ongoing investigation to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse and see whether the HOME Program can be better run,” said Chairman Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas).

Getting knotty over taxes: A House Ways and Means subcommittee is teeing up the knotty issue of IRS oversight of tax-exempt groups.

Both Democrats and Republicans, including Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-La.), the chairman of the Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee, have questioned how the tax-collecting agency deals with those groups in recent months.

Boustany sent a letter to the agency in October, after a GOP spat with AARP, that said that certain tax-exempt groups look more like for-profit enterprises. The Louisiana Republican has also expressed concern that the IRS is delving too deeply into the operations of Tea Party groups that have sought tax-exempt status.

But Democrats have said that groups seeking 501(c)(4) status, like those Tea Party groups, should be solely focused on social welfare and not traffic in politics.

Calling all tourists: The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on how to promote foreign travel to the United States, with government officials, travel groups, hotel representatives and academics giving their take on the matter. During the past few years, the United States has seen an increase in travel here from foreign countries and is trying to improve visa processing in the highest-demand countries such as China and Brazil to speed processing.

BREAKING NEWS

Clearance for Ex-Im: The Senate easily passed legislation, on a 78-20 vote, reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank on Tuesday, after voting down five amendments that would have limited the program’s scope.

The Senate’s vote means the legislation heads to President Obama for his signature.

The Export-Import Bank is generally considered a non-controversial bill, but it came under attack this year from conservatives who argued it was a form of corporate welfare that let the government pick winners in the economy.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

MBA Mortgage Index: The Mortgage Bankers Association releases its weekly report on mortgage application volume.

Housing Starts-Building Permits: The Commerce Department releases its April report on the number of residential units under construction along with building permits, which allow work to start and are a forward-looking indicator of the sector’s activity.

Industrial Production-Capacity Utilization: The Federal Reserve will release its April report showing the physical output of the nation’s factories, mines and utilities. The monthly report also provides a measure of capacity utilization.

Federal Reserve Minutes: On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its latest policy meeting, when Fed officials decided to stick with their current policy of near-zero interest rates through the end of 2014.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Boehner lays out fiscal plan, knocks Obama for lack of courage
— Boehner sets stage for another showdown on the debt ceiling
— Boehner: House will link tax reform, Bush cuts
— Reid slams Boehner’s debt speech
— Geithner warns Boehner not to play with next deal to increase the debt ceiling
— Senate Democrats urge more stringent tax rules for Chinese solar firms
— Club for Growth issues Tea Party purity scorecard on freshmen
— Obama has two accounts with JPMorgan
— Lobbyists brace for regulations fight over $2 billion bungled trade
— Sen. Durbin: JPMorgan ‘gambling with taxpayer insured money’
— Geithner: JPMorgan loss shows need for financial reform
— Reid to JPMorgan: Take your business to Vegas
— House GOP slows work on bills altering Dodd-Frank reforms
— Homebuilders’ confidence hits highest level in five years
— Retail sales made small increase in April
— Senate cuts discretionary funds for veterans affairs, military construction